Public Health Nursing Services Consultation

Bristol City Council commissions Public Health Nursing services for children, young people and families in the city. This consultation sets out how we intend to commission these services in future and asks for your views on our plans.

‘Commissioning’ means understanding what people need, planning services, buying (‘procuring’) them, and checking they are working well.

What is included in the Public Health Nursing Service

Public Health Nursing services include:

• Health Visiting for 0–5-year-olds
• School Nursing for 5-19-year-olds (up to 25 for those with special educational needs and disabilities).

Public Health Nursing services work in partnership with education, health, social care and other services to support children, young people and their families. They support every child or family living or going to school in Bristol. They also provide more intensive support for children and families that need it most, such as the Family Nurse Partnership programme for first time young parents until their child reaches two.

What we are proposing

Bristol’s Public Health Nursing Service is currently part of a larger contract which is led by the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) Integrated Care Board. Bristol City Council is one of several ‘associate’ commissioners, along with South Gloucestershire Council, NHS England and others.

This contract brings together a range of community health services for children and young people, including the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, community paediatrics, therapies and special educational needs and disabilities services and services for care experienced children and young people.

The current contract ends on 31 March 2028. For the new contract, Bristol City Council intends to commission Public Health Nursing services directly, rather than continuing as an associate commissioner within the larger BNSSG Integrated Care Board contract.

Some of the benefits of commissioning Public Health Nursing services directly are:

• More local control of our funding, so we can better tailor the service to the needs of our local population, monitor performance more closely and provide better value for money.
• A clearer public health focus and stronger links with other local authority children and young people’s services, while maintaining strong links with other children’s community health services.

The budget is likely to remain around £10.4 million a year. Our contract will make provisions to vary this depending on national Government investment.

Who we would like to hear from

Anyone who lives in Bristol can give feedback.

We would especially like to hear from young people, parents, families and anyone else who is currently using or might need to use these services in future, as well as professionals from relevant services.

Why we are consulting

We have set out our proposed vision and priorities for the direct commissioning of Public Health Nursing services, which are the subject of this consultation.

The vision and priorities are set out in the consultation (link below), however you can view a full draft of the Commissioning Strategy here.

This is an opportunity for Bristol residents to help shape the future of Public Health Nursing Services in Bristol.